Dexcom Inc. Building New Manufacturing Plant in Phoenix

Local medical device maker Dexcom Inc. is building a new manufacturing facility near Phoenix, the company announced Monday.

The 180,000-square-foot facility is needed to accommodate the company’s growing continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) business, and will support Dexcom’s global manufacturing operations. The company’s presence in Phoenix is projected to create more than 500 jobs over the next several years, according to a Dexcom news release.

"We are thrilled to locate our new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in the greater Phoenix area where the health care industry is seeing accelerated growth," said Kevin Sayer, president and CEO of Dexcom, in a statement. "We chose Mesa due to the available, talented workforce, in addition to the proximity to our headquarters in San Diego and our key suppliers. Given our company's growth, and the growing demand for CGM technology, we felt that a significant expansion of our manufacturing capability in this location was a good strategic fit."

Arizona’s state government also offered Dexcom “reasonable incentives” to attract the manufacturer to the region, Sayer said in an interview last week.

The company expects initial manufacturing operations in this facility to begin in the second quarter of 2017.

Sayer said Dexcom is in “rapid growth mode,” and has added 300 new employees in the first quarter of 2016 alone.

Dexcom (Nasdaq: DXCM) is one of San Diego’s largest public companies, with a market cap of $6.5 billion.